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Proof that this 21-year-old U.K. phenom is entering the can-do-no-wrong phase of his career: a) His major-label debut is a hit in Canada, despite being released here nine months after it appeared in Britain. b) He’s returning to Toronto in September as a headliner with a show that had to be moved from the 3,000-capacity Kool Haus to the 5,000-capacity Echo Beach. And c) He can casually pick up an acoustic guitar and deliver a line like “If you’re horny, let’s do it,” from a 16-year-old R&B come-on by Ginuwine, without embarrassing himself. Or us.

If you’ve read about dubstep and heard a couple of tunes by its most recognizable star, Skrillex, but still aren’t entirely sure what the genre sounds like, here’s the most concise illustration we’ve heard. A Heart of Black and White, a.k.a. 18-year-old Zach Nafziger, has taken the instantly recognizable audio that greets Windows user each time they fire up their PC, stretched it to its breaking point, and adorned it with every major move in the dubstep playbook. After 2:49, you’ll never again have to wonder what dubstep sounds like.

Buy my album, this British singer-songwriter’s sales pitch goes. “It will make you sad.” He’s not kidding. This highlight from the follow-up EP to an acclaimed album released this spring, “To Your Health” sounds like it was written in front of a fireplace at 2 a.m. on a rainy night. So sensitive, it makes Bon Iver sound like LMFAO. (From Lucky EP)

You had to have seen this coming. Hell, cover versions that paired Bieber’s first single from his current album and Justin Timberlake & Co.’s last single from their final album started popping up on YouTube weeks ago. None of that, however, diminishes the satisfaction of hearing this engineered meeting of teen-idol generations executed with such agility and panache.

As if anyone needed further affirmation that Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange is, at this point, the front-runner for album of the year, its reach already extends outside its genre (what is puzzlingly referred to these days as R&B) to spawn a cover version. A collaboration between L.A. singer-songwriter Ramona (Nite Jewel) Gonzalez and Vancouver’s Krgovich (No Kids, Mount Eerie), this feels like a charming, low-budget homage. And while its intent probably isn’t to illuminate the arbitrary nature of stylistic boundaries, that’s exactly what it ends up doing.

There’s a curious similarity between this second-album preview by one of Australia’s best new bands and its contribution to next month’s superb Fleetwood Mac tribute album, Tell Me That You Want Me. In fact, if you click on their lush interpretation of Lindsey Buckingham’s Tusk tune, “That’s All for Everyone” immediately after listening to “Apocalypse Dreams,” it sounds like the second half of a very clever suite. (From Lonerism, out Oct. 9)

This is just too conceptually daft to pass up: The former’s disco-era “Heart of Glass” paired with Philip Glass’s Vivaldi-esque “Violin Concerto II.” Perhaps the Daft Beatles, the merrymakers behind this bit of highbrow mischief, should have titled it “Heart of Philip.”

While the notion of an “indie supergroup” is a contradiction of terms, this is as close to such a creature as we’ve seen this year: Britt Daniel (Spoon), Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs) and Sam Brown (drummer for the latter-day iteration of Ohio punk band New Bomb Turks) definitely share overlapping idiosyncrasies. “Would That Not Be Nice” has the virtue of sounding enough like a conventionally constructed pop song that it feels like a reward when you realize it’s anything but. (From A Thing Called Divine Fits, out Aug. 28)

The pairing of the accomplished Toronto electronic band with Radiohead’s unlikely OK Computer single proves to be an inspired match. Built around a rapid-heartbeat bassline and awash in keyboard textures and layered vocals, this sounds, if anything, even more dark and ominous than the original. (From A Tribute to OK Computer)

Nashville certainly wouldn’t be the first place you’d think of after hearing this giddily psychedelic trio. Hell, 2012 wouldn’t be the first year you’d think of, either. Instead, “Wake Up” unabashedly evokes everyone from The Kinks to pretty much any ’60s band that thought it was a good idea to employ a full-time flautist. And that’s to say nothing of “Sri Sai Flora,” which sounds like The Beatles’ “Taxman” played sideways. The only real question is, are they kidding? (From The Sufis)

“So I just kept breathing, my friends/ Waiting for the Man to choose/ Saying, ‘This ain’t the day that it ends/ Is there no white light?’/ And I’m not through.” It says something about the multiple levels of artifice we’ve come to expect, if not demand, from our pop stars that Michael’s unadorned rumination on his recent near-death feels downright startling. Musically, it’s similar to the insistent but gentle pulse of Everything But The Girl’s “Missing.” The video stars Kate Moss, but her celebrity seems incidental to the proceedings. Which is, no doubt, kind of the point.

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